I caught my husband kissing my older sister in my mother’s kitchen while twenty people celebrated my father’s sixty-fifth birthday in the next room. / Chapter 27 / 120

Chapter 27 - The Final Betrayal

Richard fell to his knees beside Eleanor's pristine leather boots. The confident, smug corporate lawyer who had broken my heart in my mother’s kitchen was completely broken.

"Eleanor... please," Richard begged, spit and blood dripping from his split lip. "I did everything you told me. I set up the offshore shell companies. I got the deed transfers ready. You don't have to do this."

Eleanor didn't even look down at him. She nudged his shoulder with the polished tip of her umbrella as if inspecting roadkill. "Richard, you had one simple task: keep Maya compliant until the annual probate filing on Arthur's sixty-fifth birthday. Instead, you were caught kissing Julianna like an undisciplined teenager in the middle of a catering line."

"Julianna initiated it!" Richard whimpered, his eyes darting frantically toward me. "Maya, tell her! You know how your sister is! She threw herself at me! She promised me she’d convince Arthur to transfer the voting stock!"

From behind the cellar doorway, Julianna stepped out, her eyes blazing with a fury that obliterated all her former vanity.

"You lying bastard," Julianna said, her voice shaking with pure venom. "You gave me the necklace. You told me Mother had chosen us to run the firm together. You swore you were divorcing Maya on Monday morning!"

Richard looked at Julianna, then at me, realizing every single lie he had spun was laid out on the table before the very family he sought to destroy.

"It doesn't matter who initiated what," Eleanor said coldly, checking her diamond-encrusted wristwatch. "The board meets at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. In less than eight hours, the harbor berths will be sold to the overseas syndicate. Arthur, you and Maya are going to sign the release forms right now. If you do, Margaret will be put on a private flight back to South America with a very generous pension. Julianna will keep her townhouse. And Richard... well, Richard will take the fall for the entire financial irregularity."

"And if we refuse?" Liam asked, his finger tightening on the trigger of his firearm.

Eleanor smiled—a terrifying, soulless smirk.

"If you refuse, Mr. Vance, there will be another tragic house fire on the bluff. An old house with faulty wiring in a severe coastal storm. Three bodies recovered from the ashes: Arthur, his long-lost runaway sister, and his tragic, betrayed daughter Maya. The grief will simply compel Julianna and me to liquidate everything and retire to Switzerland."

"You won't get the chance, Eleanor," a quiet, raspy voice announced.